Milind Deo, a professor of chemical engineering, recently received special recognition for his contributions to petroleum engineering by the Rocky Mountain North America Region of the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) International.

The award was for his work in Reservoir Description and Dynamics. Deo is director of the Petroleum Research Center, associate dean of academic affairs at the University of Utah College of Engineering, and a member of the Institute for Clean and Secure Energy – an interdisciplinary research institute at the U of U working on various facets of the energy problem.

The SPE Regional Technical Awards acknowledge SPE members who make “significant technical and professional contributions to the worldwide oil and gas industry and to the petroleum engineering profession and exceptional service to the Society.”

Deo’s research focuses on maximizing production from oil reservoirs in an economical way. He is also seeking to explore the use of unconventional petroleum resources for fuel production, such as oil shale, oil sands and unconventional gas reservoirs such as tight gas and coal-bed methane.